Iconic Dewsbury cafe will close down on Christmas Eve

An iconic cafe in Dewsbury town centre will pour its final cup of coffee today after a struggle against business rates.

Fourteen or 15 members of staff will lose their jobs when Bailey’s, in Market Place, closes its doors this Christmas Eve.

Kitchen manager Jayne Haley blamed business rates for the collapse of the business.

She said: “The rates have been too high for a while. We have just not been able to make any money.

“I am upset for my job but more so for the cafe because it has been here for about 70 years. Some staff have been here for 22 years.

“A lot of places in Dewsbury seem to have closed. There are not even many places to go in town so people will have to go somewhere else. If there is even less then we are just going to lose more people who would have come into town.”

She said staff were told on Saturday and that the owners had done everything they could to try to keep the cafe open.

She said that seven members of staff who will lose their jobs were on contracts of about 16 hours a week.

A further seven or eight worked on Saturdays or a single day during the week.

Things looked brighter for the cafe last year when it expanded into another shop unit below its original first floor lot.

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